


The Long Walk Home

by excuseme_howdareyou



Series: Tentatodd Week 2020 [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Jason Todd's Death, Jason Todd-centric, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutations and Body Modifications, No he's not Poison Ivy's sidekick, Plant Jason Todd, Resurrected Jason Todd, Tentatodd Week 2020, Tumblr: Tentatodd Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excuseme_howdareyou/pseuds/excuseme_howdareyou
Summary: Continuance of 'Birth of Monkshood'Jason Todd just climbed out of his grave. Now what?
Series: Tentatodd Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700494
Comments: 1
Kudos: 59





	The Long Walk Home

Day 5: Mutations and Body Modifications

* * *

_'And now I lay me down to sleep,'_ he's not sure why the little rhyme popped into his head, but the words were there and they weren't going away,' _I pray the Lord my soul to keep.'_ But God did not keep him; no, Jason Todd was laid down to sleep but he did not stay there.

Jason remembered being fascinated with plants and green, even after meeting Poison Ivy and all the damage she's caused over the years. He remembered keeping that little aloe vera plant in his room, then a pot of English Ivy hanging in the corner, then Dick gave him a succulent for his fifteenth birthday.

"You're becoming quite the green thumb, Master Jason," Alfred commented when Jason came home from school one day with a tiny little tree for Earth Day. Bruce had readily agreed to let him plant it in the back yard, and laughed at Alfred's remark. 

"If we're not careful, Isley's gonna try and steal you to make you her sidekick."

Jason remembered not liking that thought. Poison Ivy only cared about plants, she _hurt_ people. Jason _cared_ about people; he just thought plants were interesting. In retaliation and to make it clear he was _not_ interested in being Pamela Isley's sidekick, he started drawing ideas for a local garden in Crime Alley. One that would be for everyone, where vegetable plants would grow and the people could grow their own food and Jason's green thumb would help _people_.

But that was months ago and then he died. Now Jason sat in front of his own grave, staring at the slab of stone and wishing he'd wake up from this nightmare. "Here lies Jason Todd-Wayne..." he breathed out, as if speaking them out loud would make them disappear. Or make them less real. Because they seemed pretty real enough. 

With tentative fingers, he reached out and traced the J of his name, his hand shaking. _Dead_. He was... he's... _He died_. Just then, as if remembering how he got out, Jason glanced down at the hole in the ground that he'd crawled out of. One foot was still tangled in the dirt, stuck in his grave. 

_His grave!_ Jason scrambled back as quick as he could. He just crawled out of his own _grave!_ Normal people don't _do_ that! They don't die and be buried and then dig their way out of their coffin! And that had to have been what that box was. It wasn't some sick joke by the Joker; it was his honest-to-God coffin. 

_'Am I a zombie?'_ he thought, staring straight at the grave marker while trying to keep the hell away from it. No... No, zombies don't think, do they? Well, he's never met one before and it's not exactly like there's zombies running around that he can ask 'oh hey, when you came back to life, did you have an existential crisis?'

Because dead people don't come back to life!

Okay, so... so maybe he wasn't a zombie. Because he could still think and after a quick pat down of his own body, didn't appear to have any rotting flesh hanging off of him. Jason squeezed his cheeks for good measure, gritty from dirt and probably smearing grass all over his skin, but the skin was whole and intact and he didn't have any hunger for human flesh or brains. 

Ugh, brains must taste _terrible_.

So not a zombie but...but not entirely human. 

He noticed it first, _remembered_ it, when he felt a tickling sensation on his hands. Looking down, Jason was shocked to see grass wrapping around his fingers. It curled and waved, stroking his hands in soft little pets and trying to curl around him best as it could. "Ah!" he yanked his hand away from the ground; the grass gave no resistance and let him pull away without a fuss. Though call him crazy, but... did it seem like the lawn wilted when he pulled away?

Then he remembered the vines. 

_'Please tell me I was just hallucinating...'_ he wished and inspected his hand for any- Oh fuck, there it was! Before his eyes, Jason's forearm turned a dark green, then a section turned a soft brown and a... a _protrusion_ grew out of his arm. It was pointed and long and it grew and grew and grew until he could recognize it as a plant vine. 

It didn't hurt, thought his brain kept telling him that it should; in fact, it felt more like his hair standing on end, when he got goosebumps and all he wanted to do was rub the feeling away because it felt _weird_. The vine grew some more, falling to the ground and sprouting some green leaves along the way before twining around something to his left. 

Jason turned his head to see what the vine - _his_ vine!- was curling around and came face to face with two more gravestones. "Oh..." his voice was quiet. 

He knew these graves. Martha and Thomas Wayne. Bruce's parents. So that meant...

Jason was still on the Manor grounds. Creepy vine growing out of his arm or not, crawling out of his own grave or not, Jason needed to find Bruce.

* * *

The long walk from the Wayne Family Cemetery/Graveyard/whatever-Bruce-wanted-to-call-it was made longer by the fact that Jason really had no control over his stupid vines. If he concentrated hard enough, he could recall it back into his arm where the skin would turn a normal pink again, but then he'd notice his fingertips turning brown and cracked like tree bark. 

"No!" he scolded and shook his hand wildly to turn it back to normal," No more of that! You just... just stay in there until I can figure out what the hell is going on." It probably wasn't the most sane thing, to talk to his own (appendages?) vines as if they were a separate entity but seeing as he was still learning control over them, they might as well have their own minds. 

Even if it was really pretty when one vine grew a red flower with long petals like a firework. 

Jason was a little nervous about plucking the flower presented right in front of his face -it was attached to him, shouldn't it hurt?- but felt no sensation other than that of plucking a hair. A small little pinch, then the feeling entirely forgotten. He held onto the sweet smelling flower the rest of the way. 

Wayne Manor was just as imposing as he remembered, but darker somehow. More sad. The garden was overgrown, there were less lights on than he expected, and it took entirely way too long for someone to come to the door when he thumped the knocker. Which was okay, because it gave him time to pull those little vines back in.

He was trying to figure out how to turn his green and brown arm back to normal color when the door opened. 

It didn't open slowly. It was thrown open -as much as a door that big can be thrown- and the light from within the Manor shone down into Jason's face. Blinking the brightness away, he rubbed at his face to try and get some of the dirt out of his eyes. 

" _Jason_?" came Alfred's voice, shocked and faint as he couldn't believe what was before his eyes. To be fair, Jason couldn't really believe it himself. 

But it was okay now. He was _home_ , and Alfred was there throwing open the door for him, and Bruce must be inside and _it would be okay now._ Jason's eyes felt hot and wet and he rubbed at them again, but it felt a little scritchy and oh!- He blinked at his palm and realized he'd wiped away his tears with a leaf. 

Alfred stepped forward," How...?" He reached out towards Jason, then froze as if unsure," Is it really you, my boy?"

Something hot and bitter welled up in his throat, and there was no stopping the tears streaming down Jason's cheeks. "Alfred," was all he managed to choke out before throwing himself into the butler's arm. 

"Oh Jason." Alfred's arms didn't hesitate in any way, coming down to wrap around the boy's form, holding him tight as he dared, curling around him as if he'd disappear if he dared let go. And if Alfred noticed the tiny white flowers of Queen Anne's Lace sprouting in Jason's hair, then well... that would be a discussion for a later time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh no, I've made an AU. I do have a third part planned for this, where Jason is reunited with Bruce and meets the spunky little kid known as Timothy Drake. It's cute and adorable and Jason's vines really do have a mind of their own sometimes.


End file.
